Reporting on the realities of Mexican life still carries enormous risk. Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders submitted recommendations on 4 March to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (see document below), which will examine the case of Mexico during the 17th Universal Periodic Review (21 October - 1 November 2013). In the states of San Luis Potosí (north-center) and Tamaulipas (north-east), organized crime and local governments, the latter sometimes infiltrated...

Unknown men opened fire on the premises of a newspaper and a TV station in the early morning hours of March 6, according to the newspaper Milenio. The first attack was against the newspaper El Diario around 1 a.m. 15 minutes later a similar attack was made against Canal 44, according to El Diario. There were no injuries or deaths in the attacks, and so far no arrests - in spite of a security camera that recorded the vehicle used during the first attack. After the attacks, local and state...

An online journalist in northern Mexico was shot dead while he ate at a taco stand, the Associated Press reported. Jaime Guadalupe Gonzalez Dominguez was shot at least 17 times in the border town of Ojinaga in Chihuahua state on Sunday night, El Universal reported. Mexican magazine Proceso reported Dominguez was shot at least 18 times. The gunmen stole his camera. The journalist’s website, Ojinaga Noticias, described the attack as a “real shame” in what it said was...

Federal agents guarding the premises of the newspaper El Siglo de Torreón (Torreón Century), in the northern Mexican city of Torreón, Coahuila, came under attack on the afternoon of Monday, February 25, by a group of armed men. The uniformed agents were on patrol at the back of the newspaper’s offices when the attackers, who were in a passing vehicle, opened fire with AK-47s. Soon after the attack reinforcements arrived and a perimeter was set up. Several...

A newspaper in northern Mexico says five of its non-editorial employees were kidnapped briefly and released hours later. The Siglo de Torreon said on its Internet site that the abductions reflected the lack of security for newspaper employees in the violence-plagued region around the city of Torreon. The paper said abductors took two people who operated its online services, two employees of the advertising department and one administrative employee. It said the workers were released early...

The Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico has issued this Wednesday “immediate and absolute” freedom of French Florence Cassez, who was convicted in this country to 60 years in prison for kidnapping and other crimes, a case that caused tensions with France. The decision was approved by a majority of votes by the first Chamber of the Court, who modified an original draft resolution calling for the return of the case to a criminal court for irregularities during the judicial...

Press photographers Mircea Topoleanu and Brandon Daniel Bazán were finally released yesterday after being held since their arrests while covering major clashes between police and demonstrators in Mexico City during President Enrique Peña Nieto’s swearing-in on 1 December. They were freed along with 54 of the other 69 people arrested during the inauguration-day clashes. The authorities have dropped the public disorder charges on which they were all being held, which carried...

Human rights defenders across the Americas are facing escalating levels of intimidation, harassment and attacks at the hands of state security forces, paramilitary groups and organized crime, Amnesty International said in a new report today. The report Transforming pain into hope: Human rights defenders in the Americas, is based on around 300 cases of intimidation, harassment, attacks and killings of human rights defenders in more than a dozen countries primarily between January 2010 and...

The growth of organized crime in Mexico and Central America has led to an increase in violence and insecurity, posing challenges to citizens, public security forces, and travelers. Migrants crossing the region are particularly vulnerable, facing increasing threats from Mexican drug traffickers, Central American gangs, and corrupt government officials. Migrants who choose to proceed even in the face of these risks increasingly are forced to seek the assistance of intermediaries known as...

Press freedom groups are demanding that Mexico investigate the shooting death of a freelance journalist just after he reportedly witnessed a confrontation at a highway checkpoint. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says reporter Adrian Silva was found dead in his car Wednesday. Silva had been covering a story on gasoline thefts from Mexico's state-owned oil company. He worked for several publications in the central state of Puebla. The committee said Thursday that Silva was...